


these are the days (we won't regret)

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6887629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forty-five feels a lot like twenty-five, except with more of a twinge in his back and an earlier bedtime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these are the days (we won't regret)

Forty-five feels a lot like twenty-five, except with more of a twinge in his back and an earlier bedtime. 

Darren still drinks too much. He still talks too much. He still thrives on the energy of the people around him. He still throws himself into projects, they're just to a smaller audience. 

He still comes home at the end of the day to one person. It's not the same person now at twenty-five, which is such a fucking strange thought to realize sometimes, because at twenty-five Chris was in his life. 

It was just more of a stab in the heart kind of wanting, wrong in a million ways. He's not sad for the years they've lost, he's glad for the years they've had - and all the ones they'll have to come. 

* 

In his twenties, Chris worried about his image. He worried about rumors on the internet. He worried about things that were ultimately out of his control, and he's sure he lost at least a few years off his life for the stress he inflicted upon himself. 

But he was who he was and he is who he is. He can't change it and one thing life has taught him is that there's no use wasting now on yesterday's regret. 

He still worries. Now he worries about his cholesterol and getting in a workout every day to fight that creeping middle age spread. He worries about Darren never wanting to wear his glasses because he thinks they make him look old. He worries about the ingredients in his dog's food and spends probably more money on pet food than he and Darren do on their actual grocery runs. 

He has some of the same concerns now that he did then, they just don't seem as dire. Will his next book sell? Will his next project flop? He's lived through the ups and downs on both sides of his dual career, and he understands now what it feels like to come out on the other side. 

* 

"How cheesy is it if I say that I've traveled the world and seen so many amazing sights and nothing can actually compare to the way you look right now?" Darren's voice is deep and smooth, eyes half-shut, fingers trailing down Chris's side. 

"That's a hypothetical question, right?" Chris asks. He is sleepy, hair a wild, unstyled, post-sex mess. There's stubble on his face and a pink splotch at the base of his neck. He's naked and flushed and is knees are red from the friction of kneeling on them on the bed, and for all his obnoxious purple prose Darren really does think he's never seen anything better. 

"Because if you actually said that to me, I'd have to kick you out of bed." 

Darren frowns. "Can I at least say you look smoking hot and I want to kiss your face a lot?" 

"That's allowed," Chris says. "As long as it isn't an empty promise." 

Darren grins and rolls on top of him. "Deal." 

*

They still have fans. Not too many of them, but they're around. The ones that still care do it with a passion just on the wrong side of invasive. 

Chris still doesn't like it. 

Darren still prefers to just pretend they don't exist. 

They live their life, knowing that people know, knowing that they can't stop it. It's an unpleasant jolting reminder when someone approaches them on the street with a curious gleam in their eye.

"It's our life," Chris says firmly. "Not theirs." 

Darren's malleable. It's one of his better qualities and also one of his worst, if you ask Chris. But Darren's learned to fight about the things he's passionate about, and Chris has learned to accept minor victories with grace and to compromise. 

"I'm not going back into a closet for anyone," Darren says. "Not even you." 

They meet in the middle. They don't give the fans much to go on, but they don't hide either. 

* 

"Play it again, Sam." 

Chris is lowgrade drunk, stretched out on the sofa with a cat in his lap. 

"Are you confusing me with the pool boy again? My name's Darren, babe. Not Sam." Darren's at the piano across the room. He's drunk too but his fingers are impervious to the alcohol. 

Darren doesn't play guitar as much as now. He prefers the piano because of evenings like this. The back doors open to let the breeze in, a glass of wine perched on top of the Steinway that was Chris's fortieth birthday present to him, and an audience of one to appreciate the music. 

"Fuck off and play me something else," Chris orders. 

Darren grins. "Well, if you're gonna sweet talk me like that."

*

They don't have kids. 

Chris wanted them. Darren did, too, until the paperwork was in front of his case and it really hit home how much it would change his life.

They had dozens of conversations, some angry, some teary. Chris talked quietly about moving out. Darren talked loudly about the logistics of parenthood and how badly he'd fuck a kid up. 

Chris thinks he's doesn't want them for all the wrong reasons, but in the end he realizes the reasons don't matter and he doesn't want to bring a kid into a house where it wasn't totally wanted anyway. 

They get another dog and life goes on.

*

On a warm night in October, Chris says, "Doesn't feel like it's been this long, does it?" 

They're outside, curled up together in the hammock. He turns to look at Darren as he speaks, enjoying the up close view he never quite gets tired of. 

Darren's face is paunchier, his hair is cut shorter. The plugs worked, a concession to the industry's obsession with keeping the same aesthetic. He looks his age most days. 

Chris could still pass for thirty, but he doesn't try to. He remembers how desperately hard he used to try. All the anxieties and insecurities still live inside of him, they just aren't the loudest voice anymore. A lot happened in his life to shift his perspective, but he's under no illusion that it's anything but the natural result of growing up and growing older. 

Darren still laughs like a kid and fucks with enthusiasm and sleeps all odd hours of night and day. Chris says Darren keeps him feeling young. Darren says age is only a state of mind, even though his knees creak a little when he's playing fetch with the dog. 

This is not an anniversary for them. They don't remember the first day they met, young and full of nerves and hope. The memory has dulled to a vague recollection of some night in October that felt a lot like this one. 

Darren kisses him, fingers soft on Chris's face. He barely has to change the angle for their mouths to meet. "Nah. It really doesn't." 

*

They don't get married. 

They could if they wanted, of course. 

They might, eventually. They've talked about it. 

"We've got a good thing now, right?" Darren asked the last time the subject came up. 

"Yeah," Chris had said. "We're fine like this." 

He doesn't want a ceremony. He doesn't want to think about the people who won't be standing with him. 

Darren's fine with that. He doesn't feel deprived. The commitment is important, not the ceremony... and that part, they've got covered.


End file.
